10 GUIDK TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 



Pier-ease 2. fossilised in limestone, which was ohtained in 1813 by Sir 

 Alexander Cochrane, R.N., from the island of Grande-Terre, 

 near that of Giiadaloupe in the West Indies. The rock in 

 which this specimen was discovered is quite a modern heach- 

 formation. 

 Table-ease The oldest known traces of a man-like skeleton are the 

 roof of a small skull, two grinding teeth, and a diseased 

 femur, discovered by Professor E. Dubois in a bed of volcanic 

 ash containing remains of late Pliocene or early Pleistocene 

 mammals near Trinil in Java. A plaster cast of the piece of 

 skull is placed in Table-case 1. It shows that the capacity 

 of the l)rain-case in this animal, which has Ijeen named 

 Pithecanthropus erectus, can scarcely have exceeded two-thirds 

 that of the average man. The forehead is very low, and the 

 hfmy ridges above the eyes are prominent. 



Pier-case 3. Xhe man-like apes or Simiidae, which are represented at 

 the present day by the gibbons, orangs, chimpanzees, and 

 gorillas, in the tropics of Asia and Africa, also lived in 

 southern Europe in the latter part of the ]\Iiocene period. A 

 characteristic thigh-bone of one of these apes (Faidopithex 

 rhenanus) has been found in the lowest deposits of the 

 Pliocene period even so far north as Eppelsheim, Hesse- 

 Darmstadt. All the fossil forms are known merely by pieces 

 of jaws and isolated limlj-lwnes, of M'hich plaster casts are 

 exhibited in Pier-case 3. 



The Old World monkeys are proved to date back to the 

 Middle Miocene ]3eriod in Europe. Mesoiyithecus, from the 

 Lower Pliocene of Pikermi, near Athens, is known by nearly 

 all parts of the skeleton, and tine skulls are shown in Pier- 

 case 3. It is allied to the living Indian Semnopitliccus. 

 Macacus, which still survives in Europe on the rock of 

 Gibraltar, is represented by one molar tooth (named Macacus 

 pliocenvs by Owen) from the Pleistocene brick-earth of Grays, 

 Essex. 



Sl'h-o];i)EI! 2. — Lemuroidea. 



Pier-ease 3. The lemurs, which are evidently of a lower grade than 

 the monkeys and apes, immediately preceded these Anthro- 

 poidea both in Europe and North America, and became 

 extinct, at least in Europe, as soon as the latter appeared. 

 They were quite al^undant in both regions during the Eocene 

 and Oligocene periods. Fine skulls and other remains of 

 Adapts and Nccrolemur, which are typical lemurs from the 



